As a follow up to my last post on handicap scooters I want to take the concept a little further by looking more specifically at electric mobility scooters and what you should expect from them should you be considering the purchase of one when you have not owned one before.
There are several things to think about but the most important from an operating point of view is the way they are powered. Electric mobility scooters are fitted with batteries that provide the power that enables them to move around and those batteries are rechargeable and therefore need to be kept in a healthy state of charge at all times.
Now, its easy to come in after a day out and park your electric mobility scooter in its usual place and be too tired to be bothered to plug it in so that it can recharge after the day’s use. This is a potential major problem, because if you forget to do this and then leave it, when you come to use it again, the chances are that it will leave you stranded somewhere being out of charge! Sure, it might get you all the way to the shops, but if it didn’t have a full charge to begin with, then its already depleted store f electricity will dwindle fast and call its ability to make your entire return journey into question.
This is a bad enough situation for an able bodied person, but for a physically disabled person, it can be a nightmare. Electric mobility scooters are great when they are running under their own steam, but when you have to ask someone to push you, they soon take on a whole new weight problem. They are heavy beasts, thanks largely to the size of the battery they have on board and not easy to push along especially up an incline.
So here is a timely word of warning with regards to using handicap scooters and that’s to always, always, always plug them in after use to recharge, so they’ll be as good as new next time you want to take a trip on them. There’s nothing worse than finding you have a flat battery when you need to use your electric scooter and you don’t have the time to recharge it!